Operating

Systems
7.1
Foundations of Computer Science Cengage Learning
 Objectives
After studying this chapter, the student should be able
to:
 Understand the role of the operating system.
 Understand the process of bootstrapping to load the
operating system into memory.
 List the components of an operating system.
 Discuss the role of the memory manager.
 Discuss the role of the process manager.
 Discuss the role of the device manager.
 Discuss the role of the file manager in an operating system.
 Understand the main features of three common operating
systems: UNIX, Linux and Windows NT.
7.2
 A computer is a system composed of two major
components:
hardware and software.
Computer hardware
is the physical equipment.
Software
is the collection of programs that allows the hardware to
do its job.

7.3
 Computer software is divided into two broad
categories:
•Operating system
and
•Application programs

•Application programs use the computer

hardware to solve users’ problems.
•The O/S controls the access to hardware
by users.
7.4
 Figure 7.1 A computer system
7.5
 7-1 INTRODUCTION

An operating system is complex - difficult to give a

simple universal definition.
However, some common definitions:

 An operating system is an interface between the hardware

of a computer and the user (programs or humans).
 An operating system is a program (or a set of programs)
that facilitates the execution of other programs.
 An operating system acts as a general manager supervising
the activity of each component in the computer system.

7.6
 An operating system is an interface between the
hardware of a computer and the user
(programs or humans)
that facilitates the execution of other programs
and the access to hardware and software resources.

Two major design goals of an operating system are:

❑ Efficient use of hardware.
❑ Ease of use of resources.

7.7
 Bootstrap process

The operating system itself is a program that needs to be

loaded into the memory and be run. How this is achieved?

•This is a two-stage process.

•A very small section of memory is made of ROM and
holds a small program called the bootstrap program.
•When the computer is turned on, the CPU counter is set
to the first instruction of this bootstrap program and
executes the instructions in this program.
•When loading is done, the program counter is set to the
first instruction of the operating system in RAM.

7.8
 Figure 7.2 The bootstrap process
7.9
 7-2 EVOLUTION

Long history of evolution

Summarized below:
Batch systems
Batch operating systems were designed in the 1950s to
control mainframe computers.
•At that time, computers were large machines
•Used punched cards for input
•Line printers for output
•Tape drives for secondary storage media.
• Each program was called a job.
•A programmer who wished to execute a job sends a
request to the operating system.
7.10
 Time-sharing systems
To use computer system resources efficiently,
multiprogramming was introduced.
The idea is to hold several jobs in memory at a time, and
only assign a resource to a job that needs it on the condition
that the resource is available.

Multiprogramming brought the idea of time sharing:

resources could be shared between different jobs, with each
job being allocated a portion of time to use a resource.
Because a computer is faster than a human, time sharing is
hidden from the user—each user has the impression that the
whole system is serving them exclusively.

7.11
 Personal systems
When personal computers were introduced, there was a need
for an operating system for this new type of computer.
During this era, single-user operating systems such as DOS
(Disk Operating System) were introduced.

Parallel systems
The need for more speed and efficiency led to the design of
parallel systems: multiple CPUs on the same machine. Each
CPU can be used to serve one program or a part of a
program, which means that many tasks can be accomplished
in parallel instead of serially. The operating systems required
for this are more complex than those that support single
CPUs.
7.12
Distributed systems
•Networking and internetworking have created a new
dimension in operating systems.
•A job that was previously done on one computer can
now be shared between computers that may be thousands
of miles apart.
•Distributed systems combine features of the previous
generation with new duties such as controlling
security.
Real-time systems
•A real-time system is expected to do a task within a specific
time constraint.
•They are used with real-time applications, which monitor,
respond to or control external processes or
environments.
7.13
 7-3 COMPONENTS

Today’s operating systems are very complex.

•An O/S needs to manage different resources in a
computer system.
•It resembles an organization with several managers
at the top level.
•Each manager is responsible for managing their
department, but also needs to cooperate with
others and coordinate activities.
•A modern operating system has at least four duties:
memory manager, process manager, device
manager and file manager.
7.14
 Figure 7.3 Components of an operating system
7.15
User interface
Each operating system has a user interface
•A program that accepts requests from users (processes)
and interprets them for the rest of the operating
system.
•A user interface in some operating systems, such as
UNIX, is called a shell.
•In others, it is called a window to denote that it is menu
driven and has a GUI (graphical user interface)
component.

7.16
Memory manager
One of the responsibilities of a modern computer system is
memory management.
•Although the memory size of computers has increased
tremendously in recent years, so has the size of the
programs and data to be processed.
•Memory allocation must be managed to prevent
applications from running out of memory.
•Operating systems can be divided into two broad
categories of memory management:
•Monoprogramming
and
•Multiprogramming.

7.17
Monoprogramming
In monoprogramming, most of the memory capacity is
dedicated to a single program; only a small part is needed to
hold the operating system. In this configuration, the whole
program is in memory for execution. When the program
finishes running, the program area is occupied by another
program.

Figure 7.4 Monoprogramming

7.18
Multiprogramming
In multiprogramming, more than one program is in memory
at the same time, and they are executed concurrently, with
the CPU switching rapidly between the programs.

Figure 7.5 Multiprogramming

7.19
 Figure 7.6 Categories of multiprogramming
7.20
 Figure 7.7 Partitioning
7.21
 Figure 7.8 Paging
7.22
 Figure 7.9 Demand paging
7.23
 Figure 7.10 Demand segmentation
7.24
Virtual memory
Demand paging and demand segmentation mean that, when a
program is being executed, part of the program is in memory
and part is on disk. This means that, for example, a memory
size of 10 MB can execute 10 programs, each of size 3 MB,
for a total of 30 MB. At any moment, 10 MB of the 10
programs are in memory and 20 MB are on disk. There is
therefore an actual memory size of 10 MB, but a virtual
memory size of 30 MB. Figure 7.11 shows the concept.
Virtual memory, which implies demand paging, demand
segmentation or both, is used in almost all operating systems
today.

7.25
 Figure 7.11 Virtual memory
7.26
Process manager
A second function of an operating system is process
management, but before discussing this concept, we need to
define some terms.

Program, job, and process

 A program is a non-active set of instructions stored on disk.
 A program becomes a job from the moment it is selected for
execution until it has finished running and becomes a program
again.
 A process is a program in execution. It is a program that has started
but has not finished.

7.27
 State diagrams
The relationship between a program, a job and a process
becomes clearer if we consider how a program becomes a
job and how a job becomes a process. This can be illustrated
with a state diagram that shows the different states of each of
these entities.

7.28
 Figure 7.12 State diagram with boundaries between program, job and process
7.29
 Schedulers
To move a job or process from one state to another, the
process manager uses two schedulers: the job scheduler and
the process scheduler.

Figure 7.13 Job scheduler

7.30
 Figure 7.14 Process scheduler
7.31
 Queuing
Our state diagram shows one job or process moving from
one state to another. In reality, there are many jobs and many
processes competing with each other for computer resources.
To handle multiple processes and jobs, the process manager
uses queues (waiting lists). A job control block or process
control block is associated with each job or process. This is a
block of memory that stores information about that job or
process. The process manager stores the job or process
control block in the queues instead of the job or process
itself.

7.32
 Figure 7.15 Queues for process management
7.33
 Process synchronization
The whole idea behind process management is to
synchronize different processes with different resources.
Whenever resources can be used by more than one user
(or process, in this case), we can have two problematic
situations: deadlock and starvation.

7.34
 Figure 7.16 Deadlock

i
Deadlock occurs when the operating system does not
put resource restrictions on processes.

7.35
 Figure 7.17 Deadlock on a bridge
7.36
 Figure 7.18 Starvation
7.37
 Figure 7.19 The dining philosophers problem

Starvation is the opposite of deadlock. It can happen

when the operating system puts too many resource
restrictions on a process.
7.38
Device manager
The device manager, or input/output manager, is responsible
for access to input/ output devices. There are limitations on
the number and speed of input/output devices in a computer
system.

 The device manager monitors every input/output device

constantly to ensure that the device is functioning properly.
 The device manager maintains a queue for each input/output
device or one or more queues for similar input/output devices.
 The device manager controls the different policies for accessing
input/output devices.

7.39
File manager
Operating systems today use a file manager to control
access to files. A detailed discussion of the file manager also
requires advanced knowledge of operating system principles
and file access concepts that are beyond the scope of this
book. The file manager:

 controls access to files.

 supervises the creation, deletion, and modification of files.
 controls the naming of files.
 supervises the storage of files.
 is responsible for archiving and backups.

7.40
 7-4 A SURVEY OF OPERATING SYSTEMS

In this section we introduce some popular operating

systems and encourage you to study them further. We
have chosen three operating systems that are familiar to
most computer users: UNIX, Linux and Windows.

7.41
UNIX
UNIX was originally developed in 1969 by Thomson and
Ritchie of the Computer Science Research Group at Bell
Laboratories. UNIX has gone through many versions since
then. It has been a popular operating system among
computer programmers and computer scientists.

UNIX is a multiuser, multiprocessing, portable

operating system.
It is designed to facilitate programming, text
processing and communication.

7.42
 Figure 7.20 Components of the UNIX operating system
7.43
 Linux
•In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a Finish student at the
University of Helsinki at the time, developed a
new operating system that is known today as
Linux.
•The initial kernel, which was similar to a small
subset of UNIX, has grown into a full-scale
operating system today.
•The Linux 2.0 kernel, released in 1997, was
accepted as a commercial operating system
•It has all features traditionally attributed to
7.44
UNIX.
Windows NT/2000/XP

•In the late 1980s Microsoft, under the leadership of Dave

Cutler, started development of a new single-user
operating system to replace MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk
Operating System).
•Windows NT (NT standing for New Technology) was
the result.
•Several versions of Windows NT followed and the name
was changed to Windows 2000.
•Windows XP (XP stands for eXPerience) was released in
2001.
•We refer to all of these versions as Windows NT or just
NT.

7.45
 Figure 7.21 The architecture of Windows NT

7.46